Tangible
by EllisLuie
Summary: Grieving for your best friend is hard enough. It's even harder when people try to convince you he never existed in the first place.


**Disclaimer: I don't claim any ownership to Sherlock.**

 **Warning:** Not a fun oneshot. It's short and largely left up to interpretation, especially the end. Carries a certain double meaning as well, but that's easily ignored. Just so you know, I'm not very nice to John Watson in this.

* * *

"How do you feel today, Mr. Watson?"

" _Dr._ Watson. I'm a doctor."

"Right. Dr. Watson. Did you see him today?"

"If I say no, can I leave?"

"What do you think?"

"No. I haven't seen him since I started seeing you."

"Do you want to?"

* * *

"You know, I'm not really sure if I believe you," he leads with, awkwardly collapsing into the horridly patterned chair and dropping his cane onto the floor beside him. "About the whole hallucination thing," he clarifies.

The woman across from him folds her hands in her lap. "No? Why's that?"

He considers carefully. "Well, he's so real. And he had – _has –_ a past, histories with other people. I've never been that creative."

His therapist gives him an almost pitying look, and it sets his teeth on edge. "You want to know what I think?" she asks, and even though she has to know he doesn't, she continues anyway. "I think you came back from a terrible ordeal, and you didn't come back unscathed. I think you came up with a way to cope; you cooked up this fantastical man who offered you salvation in the form of a proper flat and even a friend, and this man, this creation, whom you named Sherlock Holmes, was unafraid to tell people what _you_ couldn't about what you thought of them. You became dependent on this fantasy; you couldn't function properly without it. It escalated so much so that you came up with a whole range of characters, all so that you could keep pretending it was real; that _he_ was real."

John carefully keeps his mouth shut, though it takes a herculean amount of effort. He lets his therapist prattle on, growing deaf to her words as his gaze wanders over to the single window in the room, overlooking a small garden to the side of the building. There's a sad looking apple tree, crowded by flowers and weeds, in one big jumble.

"Yeah, but that'd be a lot of work, wouldn't it?" he interrupts, counting the flowers out the window. "If I was going to make up a man, wouldn't it be easier to just imagine a simple one? Someone who didn't run around London chasing murderers, or blowing up the flat. Someone normal."

"If you were going to imagine someone normal, you wouldn't need to make anyone up at all," his therapist points out gently. "John, you need excitement in your life. It's hard going from life in the military to a quiet flat with a job and no life-threatening situations. You couldn't cope, so you came up with a way to keep that level of excitement in your life."

Sullenly, John taps out bitter patterns with his cane. "What now, then?" he asks, voice sharper than he anticipates. "He's gone now. Imaginary or not, he's thrown himself off St. Bart's. He's dead. What's the point of that? If I just – if I _made him up_ for adrenaline, how the hell do you explain that? Why would my own imagination kill my best –" His throat seizes and he can no longer find words.

Sympathetic eyes assess him gently, fraying John's nerves further.

"Your mind was trying to protect you," Ella says softly. "Eventually, it rebelled against this fantasy in an effort to save you from falling in too deep. He isn't dead, John. He never existed in the first place."

* * *

"Yes."

"I'm sorry? Yes what?"

"What you said last time. Yes. I want to see him again."

"I see."

"No. No, you don't. He's my best friend, and now he's gone."

"You have to accept that he wasn't real, John. He never was."

"Stop. Don't do that. Don't you dare."

"John."

"He has to be real. He has to be."

"Why?"

"Because a world without Sherlock Holmes isn't one I want to be in."

* * *

"Sherlock."

The word fits perfectly on his tongue, exhaled in a sigh of upmost relief and pain. In that one expulsion of air, all the pain and confusion of the last several weeks melt away, leaving John languid and almost giddy.

"John," returns to him, a hasty breath of exasperated comfort. Blue eyes blink at him in the dark, and already the room starts to ooze with the familiar bottomless energy that John recognizes too well.

Something drips down his face, tracking a path down his cheek, and John doesn't bother to wipe away the tear. "Sherlock," he repeats, the only word in the entire English language that can possibly matter. "They said you weren't real. I knew. I told them, Sherlock, I said no one can imagine such a complete dickhead like you." The insult's not sincere, and it's obvious. "I told them."

"Hush," Sherlock orders, rumbling voice emerging from the shadows streaking down the walls in the corner. "It doesn't matter now, John. They did the same thing to me. They told me you were a hallucination, with Mrs Hudson and Lestrade. That you were all drug-induced hallucinations. It's alright, John; it's not true. I'm here now. I'm real."

John's breathing is raspy and reduced to weak huffs of air being drawn in and out, tears obscuring his already limited vision. "Stay," he pleads, straining to see Sherlock through the dark. "Don't go. Stay, and we can prove you're real."

Disappointed tsking makes itself known. "I'm afraid I can't. I have to go soon. Moriarty's network is still out there; I need to take care of it. I'll be back before long. I won't let you be alone. Just hold on."

"No," John says, voice shaky. "No, please. Just stay a while longer."

"Goodbye, John."

* * *

"Is the new medication working for you, Doctor Watson?"

"Fine. It's fine."

"If it's not working, the dosage can be changed. Are you still seeing him?"

"Like I said, it's fine."

"Doesn't answer my second question."

"I… I haven't hallucinated anything since the last dosage adjustment."

"Good. I'm glad. You'll get through this, John."

"Right."

* * *

The gentle breeze toys with his matted hair, short as it is. The cooler temperature is a refreshing and welcome change from the suffocating room indoors, and for a moment John lets himself sway there, enjoying the freedom. His toes curl around the cold metal bar under his feet, changing his centre of balance as he struggles to keep righting himself.

"Come along, John," Sherlock whispers dreamily in his ear, inviting and prompting. "I've done it; I've taken down Moriarty's web. We can be together again now. You don't need to stay here anymore. Come with me, and we'll show everyone they're wrong; we'll prove I'm real. Just a little further."

John finds himself nodding, excitement bubbling inside him at the promise of another adventure. Sherlock's unseen but felt presence beside him moves, brushing past him to wait patiently in front, extending a hand as he blurs into view, coat lifting in the breeze. The lights of the city blink below his feet, a whole other world irrelevant to theirs in this moment.

Seeking only the promise of relief and friendship, John reaches out his own hand to clasp around Sherlock's, feeling himself tip forward, towards the other man. His feet leave the anchor of the metal bar, leaving him free of restraint as he hangs for a moment, suspended in the air.

Sherlock's coat billows out like wings, encasing them both, and John falls.

* * *

 **AN-** I started writing this many moons ago. Never got around to finishing it. Recently, I've been through a difficult patch in my life that leaves me largely unable to find the motivation to write new chapters for the stories I should be working on. Instead, I'm trying to add to or finish the various unfinished works saved to my computer. This is one of them. It, perhaps, took a darker turn than initially anticipated, and maybe that's a reflection of the things happening in my life currently. Either way, I've finished this, and feel the need to post it as maybe evidence that I'm still alive.


End file.
